Hello, hello...... is this thing on?

Yes I know I have used that old joke before but sometimes I just can't help myself.

Yep its been months and months since my last entry. Sorry life got in the way. It is still in the way but I've been feeling like I need to blog so here  goes.

It is full on summer here now. Its hot and lately very sultry with storms in the late afternoon evening. Today, Sunday, it was a bit cooler then the last few days and nice and sunny and dry with a great wind that was just refreshing.

Bluey and I and Chilli and....Floydd went down to hear Gene play at a small Music In the Park gig. It was an activity for community members that don't get out that often organized by a staff member of Joyce's. 

Gene was great but Floydd was over taken by the joy of it all and the fact that I haven't learned his language yet and he peed all over the foot of a friend that was sitting beside me visiting while we listened to the music. I was mortified. She's such a great lady she just laughed but how bad is that. We don't blame Floydd at all we just kept him close on the leash for too long. Lesson really learned. 

Floydd is a rescue dog from the firing squad at Gayndah he is very charming and polite and very well trained . He is smart smart smart. We don't get why he wasn't snapped up but a connection to Jo took him even though she knew she couldn't keep him ( She all ready has 2 dogs, three cats, five kids.... you do the math) so Jo got him and she knows I've wanted a border collie for a long time.  He's been here two weeks but he just passed probation, Chilli was given veto power and it took her a little time to welcome him in but she has now so he's here to stay. 

Bluey is getting cranked up with fundraising to finish off the building fund it looks positive  for a construction start this coming year and maybe even finish before the end of 2009 or early 2010! i'm helping with campaign as well.

I'm dong a shave campaign again but I plan on shoving my two newest recruits Tamika and Erin to the fore. They are two student leaders in the community that both had mentioned to a Community worker that they wanted to shave this year and they are both excited about helping with the campaign and maybe taking it over for the following year. We are all working very hard to get a number of smaller satellite  shave/color events going in the schools this year and we are identifying students in each school already. Stay tuned.

I'm doing Lighting consultation on a Production of Wizard of Oz at the Brolga and just got invited to do the Lighting Design for hamlet at the local  little theatre, Z-PAC. They have got some new equipment and the play is a challenge but its one that could allow a great deal of creativity in the design. More on that later. 

I've been meaning to do some classes for young folk on lighting and sound and I may see about combining this show with that idea. More on that later.

So its probably a good thing that I'm on a new drug the side effects, of which, include increased hyper activity! Yep  I'm on Prednisone (oh you have to google this one).

I just had a look back at my blog because I thought I had told a story about Prednisone way back then. I can't find it but the story is that the main Hospital Registra was concerned about my weird behavior over Neutripeno Man.  You know where I dressed with my undies over my pj pants and my dressing gown as a cape......you know the super hero that is saving the world one neutrapenic at a time beacuse due to an industrial chemo acident he has way, way too many Neutriphils himself .... yes that what the Registra was worried about,.... was there a drug reaction to explain this hyper activity?... and aparently Shoeszenboots said "No that's just Chris, but God help us if we have to put him on to prednisone. 

Ta Da ...He's back!  That smooth talkin. jive walking energy junkie with the wakefulness and a word about everything. Its the newly created Prednisone Boy. 

Anyway I'm already feeling hungry and having to watch my food, I'm way too in tune with the cosmos and although Joyce sees it differently, I only remember getting irritable when Joyce talks about shooting Prednisone Boy - to get her man back. Apparently it has mild personality altering effects. What?.......uhuh.....uhuh........uhuh ... got it. It has huge spiked personality effects mostly to do with the areas of  getting along with humans that I am cohabiting with.   I wish we could pick and choose our symptoms but ....! Bluey has to be fair on this though, I have made her laugh so hard she has shorted a couple of times. 

Okay, why am I on this new drug? Because my fat ankles were not responding to laysics to get the water out. I have a mild form of GVHD in the skin of my ankles that leaves them spongy so I'm starting big and then I get weaned down until they still control the GVHD but reduce the sideeffects. 

My friend Jerry  with the heart transplant is only on 7 mg a day, the husband of my PhysioTherapist is down to 10 mg this go round for his kidney transplant and I'm on 25 mg a day. Perhaps Bluey has a point.

Anyway in two weeks I get to see what's what at the doctors. 

I've been writing for a while here so I'm going to sign off and recollect on stuff I saw in the old blog' s

a link to lists..... Principles/parables of my life - a list! March first 2007

PS you can check out Neutripeno Man in blog on FRiday March 23 entry.

A new look for a new time

Well I have been very very slack lately.

I've thought about why that might be...Partly its because I was pretty tired after "A Close Shave" and then we travelled to Canada. I have increased my hours at work and we are moving forward with the house plans so I guess when I look at it, I understand it. But...

I do want to keep in touch with friends that have been quite supportive to me and so I have revamped this blog and will try to make more timely entries.

News: We are going to Canada in August. John and Marlene Chorny are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary on the 23rd and we want to be their.  Jo and Gene are going as well. We are also going to spend more time at John's farm helping them with their house.  We have a few other things in the "what if" planning stages but more on that later.

I'm back to the subject of food.  I know and you know that fish is good for you and tastes good too. Some fish, shellfish in fact is really good in the taste department like lobster in butter sauce, prawns in garlic sauce, scallops on the half shell with creamy garlic and creme cheese potatoes.   You may see where I'm going with this thread?..... Not yet?  Well the things that go with some fish is the part that tastes good but in reality that part is bad for us, yes dear reader a half pound of butter melted to dip lobster in pretty much negates the good in the basic fish!  So I have been trying to come up with recipes for fish, plain good eating fillets of regular fish, that taste as good as the battered deep fried cousin that is so bad for us. help Bluey and I get over this hurdle in our good eating campaign. 

Health: Yep I'm eating pretty much anything except buffets but that's as much snobbery as safety.  I'm back on shell fish, and leftovers if they are really fresh and I know the history. I'm back on take out from special places. I'm still not looking at moldy things and soft cheeses. I actually do like vegetables and  I have been doing a lot of the cooking again.  I am trying to stay away form fancy sauces but this brings me back to the appeal above. Help me with recipes.

We got around to asking Doc Schoozenbootzen about my one  year test results and he said. "the scarring and fibrosis in your bone marrow has completely resolved". "Sounds good" says I "but what does it mean." "You are in total remission!" And my liver levels are down to near normal levels so that good too.  I'm still on immune suppression drugs but that's okay I guess. 

House: We have our plans into the Certifier and after fixing little issues...

the soil type didn't match the foundation so we had the foundation reengineered

the prices of steel has gone up 5 times since we paid our deposit on the kit homes

and  a bunch of other little things we are at the final stage and we may have an announcement next ......

More later

Chris

Just a birthday wish for my Bluey

Hey its Joyce's Birthday on May 26

I just reread what we were doing last year at this time and though I would repost this little excerpt

"I'm so lucky that Joyce is able to be here to help me through this. She is so good at her job they had no second thoughts giving her 5 months off to care for me. She is strong about making me take meds I don't like including water every ten minutes. She can drive like the wind and get me to the clinic in record time while I'm raving with a temp of 40 degrees and not panic or be anything but totoally calm and reassuring. She can wait and wait and (wait for it)...................wait with me at the doctors offices all the while inventing new ways to amuse me. Have I told you latelly how great Joyce is? Thanks Joyce, I love youlots and lots more laterChris"

Hope you Calgarians can help us celebrate her BD

On the road again

Well I have been totally absorbed by life in Hervey Bay and have not blogged in eons. But you, gentle readers have been busy too.

Arleen Hobbs has an exhibition of her watercolors up in Calgary (that we are going to see). Decidely Jazz Danceworks are doing a show in Calgary (that we are going to see). Cole and Emily Evans are taking art classes (and we are going to see their work) Mark has been busy getting well AND cleaning the garage (which are going to check on ourselves) Kathy has been opening businesses and closing businesses and goodness knows what else. (We don't get to see that but we are going to get to see her and Cory and Devon). Regan and Travis are getting more more in love and are tying their abundant love in knots (which we are honoured to be witnessing). John and Marleen and Nicole are close to having their home finished (which we get to see)

Mike and Gayla are doing stuff (which we get to share in) Derrek is going to tell us what he's been doing (to our face)

I'm tapping this up in the China Airlines lounge in Taipei on the way to Canada. Woooohooo
much more later
Chris

Oh and on a sad note, the owner of the little fruit stand near our house, Jimmy Barlow has very recently passed on and will be buried beside his wife under the angel he erected on their hill. He will be missed.

the rest of the pics

Well we are waiting for our plane back to the bay. its been a very busy 9 days. We tasted wine and beer and cheeze and been in caves, and atop a bell tower. 

This picture was an art shot done while we were at lunch at a beautiful wine estate Leeuwin.  We had lunch at Vasse Felix, Leeuwin. Laureance, Wills Domaine and Amberley. We tasted wine at 18 cellar doors. 

We started seeing caves in the morning before the cellar doors opened. the first was Mamoth Cave and well we were there we heard

about the other caves but until we ran into Jules at Xanadu and he was so passionate about Lake cave and how it was  living cave, we hadn't set on it. 

the next morning before the tastings of the day we went down down down into it. It was beautiful. here's a shot of the light show in the cave. very special.  Here are the long thin "straws" hanging from the roof they grow about one inch every 25 years. 

Newbie  in the stocks at the round house goal in Freemantle. It was the first prison but only 8 cells. Right on the harbour. 

This is the Swan Bells tower we lucked out and arrived just ast they started and hour of ringing all sorts of different changes. I was very cool. It had been purpose built to allow visitors to see the ringers and the bells on different levels. they even have closed ciruit TV so if you are on the bell level you can see the ringers and vice versa. way cool. They had a deck above all that had great veiws and you can see that there was a open, glass sided gantry around the bell tower side (facing us in the picture) and Guess what the whole building moved with the wight of the bells swinging. It was very un-nerving but really fun.

more late Chris

Margaret River, WA

Well ...we're at Margaret River in Western Australia for a week and we have been tasting wine and eating like a house on fire. Since I'm not drinking so much still, I get to be the DD and Bluey and Newbie are the Designated Drinkers and they are taking their job seriously. So for two days I've been getting "Its only 20 mins to 5:00 pm we can fit another one in before they close". I exaggerate for effect of course but we are having fun discovering little out of the way small wineries and other points of interest

We are going to move to another little boutique hotel tomorrow and then into Perth, Freemantle actually, for the weekend and then back home to HB. It’s School Holidays and that's how I can get away.

I have been having a great time back at work. The school has more students then ever and a lot of stuff got built, added and improved in the year I was away. They still like me, I don't get as much time with individual students as I like. It’s more administration now but that's okay too. I'm getting to be a serious multitasker! I do love it though, especially when I get to work with the kids.

I've been having some time off for tests lately. I went down over Easter and had my annual bone marrow aspiration on Good Friday! There I am spread eagled in a loose toga with the doc poking me with a sword in the side. I thought I was in an Easter pageant! I won't get my results for a few weeks but the doc said my blood tests that morning were "excellent". I also had all the other tests the following Tuesday so we stayed in Brisbane for the week end and did tourist stuff. Those test results are not in yet but the lung test guy showed me the results and they were up to my usual best and a tiny bit higher then when I started out over a year ago. I was stoked.

All this means that our plans for a trip to Canada are going ahead and we have booked tickets!

We leave on the 23rd of May and get back on June 13th. I haven't worked out the exact internal stuff but we are going straight to Calgary and stopping in Victoria on the way back. We also have plans for the 31st of May in Calgary Regan's wedding and the 26th of May in Calgary ...we want to celebrate JC's Birthday! Any suggestions? Other than that we are still filling in the blanks.

Anyway that is our big news.

More later
Chris